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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793667">Habitual Smoking</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElladoraRedbeard/pseuds/ElladoraRedbeard'>ElladoraRedbeard</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Coming over [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Smoking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:47:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>898</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793667</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElladoraRedbeard/pseuds/ElladoraRedbeard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade goes after Sherlock when John is dismissive about the detective's blog.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/Greg Lestrade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Coming over [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/450175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Habitual Smoking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, I know, it's been a really long time since I've updated this series and I am sorry about that! I don't know if anyone is still reading this, but I recently started rewatching Sherlock since it's on Netflix, and I got inspired to continue. I can't promise that I'll ever finish the series, but I can promise I'll try.<br/>I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="xcontrast">
  <p></p>
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    <p></p>
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      <p>Most of the time Sherlock quite liked John, he was his flatmate after all, and it wouldn't quite work if they didn't like each other. And John could be so flattering at times, like that first case they had solved together, when he kept saying Sherlock was brilliant. Sherlock had been quite confused when John had kept it up, even after he had asked the man if he had been aware he'd been doing that out loud. John had just apologized and didn't make any excuses. It had been the moment that Sherlock had decided that, yes John, would be an acceptable flatmate. And he never regretted that decision later on, when John had stayed by his side, through being shot at, being insulted for associating with the Detective, because they didn't like Sherlock's deductions.</p>
      <p>Sherlock needed someone to resonate with, to use as a sounding board, because he couldn't quite use Lestrade any more for that, not because of these pesky feelings he had.</p>
      <p>Other times, like just now, when they were standing in the morgue around a body that Sherlock was examining, Sherlock really didn't like John.</p>
      <p>"Do people actually read your blog?" Sherlock had asked the doctor, continuing the discussion that they had been having over the last couple of days. He heard Lestrade sigh, but wasn't paying enough attention to him to deduct why.</p>
      <p>"Where do you think our clients come from?" John answered.</p>
      <p>"I have a website."</p>
      <p>"On which you enumerate two hundred and forty types of tobacco ash, nobody's reading your website." Sherlock stood up straight from where he had been hunched over the body and narrowed his eyes at John, who didn't even notice that and continued describing the body on the slab.</p>
      <p>In his peripheral view Greg stepped forward, scratching his nose while looking at Sherlock, but Sherlock ignored him and left the room.</p>
      <p>His website was important, no matter what John said about it. It wasn't only about tobacco ashes, of which there were two hundred and forty<em> three </em>types, thank you very much. The website is called the Science of Deduction, that should tell him it's about more than just tobacco ash. And not just a ridiculous blog that reduces real life events to adventures. Honestly, <em>adventures,</em> as if they were characters in a children's story.</p>
      <p>As the door slammed behind him, he sped up, needing to get away from John, who he couldn't quite stand the sight of at the moment. As he set a brisk pace down the long corridor leading out of the hospital he heard the heavy gait of the hurrying Lestrade coming after him.</p>
      <p>As he finally left the hospital he leaned against the wall to the left of the exit, hoping the other man still had that pack of cigarettes in his coat. They had both quit smoking several times, but they both knew when the other needed a cigarette, so Lestrade kept an emergency pack of cigarettes. John could stuff it if he saw.</p>
      <p>"I hope one of those is for me." Sherlock said when Lestrade came bursting through the doors, nodding at the pack in Lestrade's hands. The man didn't answer, just shook two cigarettes out, sticking one in his own mouth and offering the other to Sherlock. Lighting his own, Lestrade took a slow drag from it, before offering the cigarette out to Sherlock, so he could light his one up with Lestrade's. Sherlock took Lestrade's hand in both of his own and brought his cigarette closer to the one in Lestrade's hand while it was still in his mouth. He heard, rather than saw, Lestrade briskly blowing out the smoke in his lungs when Sherlock lit the cigarette.</p>
      <p>Sherlock cursed silently to himself, wondering why he hadn't just asked for the man's lighter.</p>
      <p>"I read your blog, you know." Lestrade said, unknowingly interrupting the turmoil that was going through Sherlock about the too intimate gesture he had just done. Sherlock frowned at him, not knowing what to say to that, though he was... he didn't know what he was, and he refused to use the word '<em>delighted'</em> that sprung up in his mind, to describe what he felt about Lestrade reading his blog.</p>
      <p>"It actually helped clear someone's name once." Lestrade continued before falling silent. And Sherlock knew that the man was manipulating him by saying nothing more than that. The DI had to have known that Sherlock would be curious about how it would have cleared anyone's name. At once, Sherlock was grateful for John's dismissal of his website, if only for the fact that it brought into sharp relief that even though Lestrade would never feel more for him than an appreciation for his genius mind, and how it solved murders, at least the man was never dismissive, and always supported him in everything he did. From getting clean, to his website, to his coming round cases and helping the NSY solve them.</p>
      <p>Sherlock had once considered Lestrade to be the closest he had ever had to a friend, until John proved him otherwise. John was his best friend, but Lestrade. Oh, Lestrade, he was so much more. He was everything. And maybe, just maybe, it was time to accept that.</p>
      <p>But now it was time to ask a smiling Lestrade about how two hundred and forty <em>three</em> types of tobacco ash had cleared someone's name.</p>
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